Tencent invests in two eSports live streaming websites Huya and Douyu

By Chen Yaping12 Mar 2018

On March 8, Tencent exclusively invested US$460 million in Huya.com for Round B financing of the live streaming video website which focuses on eSports gaming. After this investment, YY Inc. will still be the majority shareholder of the platform.

In May 2017, Huya completed its 75-million-dollar Series A funding, which was led by China Ping An Insurance Overseas (Holdings) Limited, co-invested by Banyan Capital, Engage Capital, Morningside Venture Capital, YY Inc. chairman Li Xueling and Dong Rongjie, the CEO of Huya.com.

Chen Shaojie, founder and CEO of another live streaming gaming platform Douyu, revealed that they had completed a new round of financing worth 630 million dollars, also exclusively invested by Tencent.

“Thank you very much for the support of our shareholders and for the hard work and perseverance of our team. As our new journey is starting, Douyu will integrate games with live streaming, helping to give Tencent even more presence in video game live streaming industry.”

Tencent has been involved in the Round B and C financing of Douyu. In 2016, Tencent, Sequoia Capital China and Nanshan Capital invested 100 million dollars in March while the Chinese media company and other companies invested another RMB1.5 billion yuan in August.